Name liveth forevermore; Feminism is needed

I really appreciated and enjoyed Alistair Burns's articles in your two Remembrance Day issues. I was especially happy to read Mr. Burns' story of Mr. Frank McCullough and his wartime exploits.

People like Mr. McCullough, who offered their services freely to defend our freedom and security, are certainly owed a huge debt of gratitude by all of us.

The two articles on the wartime experiences of Father Angelo Roncalli, now St. John XXIII, are also fascinating.

How ironic it is that the bloodshed and the carnage of World War I taught Father Roncalli how to love, but a minor corporal named Adolf Hitler how to hate.

Patrick May

Vancouver

Feminism is needed

Re: Monica Perry's article, "Feminism hails power and autonomy over family," in the Nov. 3 issue:

I am horrified by the misconceptions in Monica Perry's article.

She accuses feminism of fostering disconnect between society and family, valuing autonomy over procreation, removing mothers from the home, increasing the cost of living, demanding dual-income households, causing unjust taxation of single-income families, and abandoning children to the care of strangers.

She portrays feminism as selfishness, and as the sole scapegoat for multifaceted social issues that could just as easily be blamed on consumerism, capitalism, or individualism.

As with many ideologies, common assumptions of feminism often come from the extremists, but the vast majority of feminists do not burn their bras, scorn family life, vilify men, or spell woman "womyn."

Feminists are people who believe that men and women should enjoy equal social, political, legal, and economic rights. Feminism calls on society to allow a woman to use her talents and pursue her goals without limitations placed on her because of her sex; it supports a woman's vocation, whether it is to motherhood, a career outside the home, religious life, or single life.

Further, it allows men to use their talents to pursue their goals without fear of judgment or emasculation, and welcomes them into equal status in the home as caregivers and nurturers.

Far from shunning homemakers in favour of power, recognition, and material wealth, feminism recognizes that women's traditional roles in society have often been difficult, invisible, and undervalued.

If, in seeking to bring these roles to greater importance, feminism "strives to put women above, where they were once considered beneath, to make women first, where they were once last," it is guilty as charged.

"Homemakers of the world, unite!" Perry's article concludes.

Perhaps, when they do, those homemakers will realize that feminism is not the enemy, but exactly the ideology they need.

Due to an unmanageable amount of spam and abusive messages, we are no longer able to offer the comment function on our website. We respect the principle of public debate and remain committed to it. Please send us a note at letters@rcav.org and visit us in the near future when we have finished building our new website — at which point the comment function will be restored.